Academic boycotts are antithetical to the free exchange of ideas,
fundamental to such institutions. A boycott of Israeli institutions has
been proposed. One justification of the boycott’s backers is alleged
Israeli “collective punishment” of Palestinians(1), as reflected in
defensive measures to prevent attacks on their citizens—attacks which have
taken over a thousand lives. Those measures, at least, have military
justification and have saved lives on both sides. The proposed boycott,
“collective punishment” of Israel’s academic institutions, is retribution
for its own sake with no practical value but to inflict pain.
Israel’s academic and medical communities have tried to deliver
education and healthcare to Palestinians, but they have been stymied by
the Palestinians themselves. Checkpoints and barriers are a response to
attacks on Israeli cities and towns and were largely absent prior to 2000
and Yasir Arafat’s intifada. Palestinians have abused traditional medical
neutrality, impairing Israeli efforts to deliver care, using ambulances,
patients, and “pregnant women” to deliver the means of destruction(2).
Tens of millions of refugees from around the world during the last
century were resettled. Only the descendants of Arabs who left Israel
were placed in permanent refugee status. At the urging of their Arab
brethren, the United Nations created a unique bureaucracy, the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), for that purpose. Among the 21
members of the Arab League, all but Jordan denied citizenship and homes to
those displaced.
There has been considerable tragedy on both sides of this nearly
sixty-year-old conflict. Beginning with rejection of partition in 1948;
through 19 years of Jordanian and Egyptian occupation of Gaza and the West
Bank; the 1967 Khartoum conference where assembled Arab leaders pledged
"no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with
it”(3); the 2000 negotiations at Camp David, when Palestinian leader
Yasir Arafat responded to yet another Israeli offer of self-determination
and statehood with the second intifada; to the 2006 Palestinian election
of Hamas, unalterably and unabashedly opposed to Israel’s existence(4),
Palestinians and their leaders in the Arab world have repeatedly refused a
peaceful resolution and statehood because it required not just
acknowledgement but acceptance of Israel’s existence.
Despite their responsibility for the Palestinians’ suffering, I am
opposed to a boycott of Arab League or United Nations members as morally
wrong collective punishment and counterproductive to the cause of peace.
1 Hickey T. Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic
institutions? Yes. BMJ 2007;335:124 (24 July).
2 Cohn JR, Romirowsky A, Marcus JM. Abuse of health-care workers’
neutral status. Lancet. 363:1473, May 1, 2004.
Rapid Response:
Collective Punishment
Academic boycotts are antithetical to the free exchange of ideas,
fundamental to such institutions. A boycott of Israeli institutions has
been proposed. One justification of the boycott’s backers is alleged
Israeli “collective punishment” of Palestinians(1), as reflected in
defensive measures to prevent attacks on their citizens—attacks which have
taken over a thousand lives. Those measures, at least, have military
justification and have saved lives on both sides. The proposed boycott,
“collective punishment” of Israel’s academic institutions, is retribution
for its own sake with no practical value but to inflict pain.
Israel’s academic and medical communities have tried to deliver
education and healthcare to Palestinians, but they have been stymied by
the Palestinians themselves. Checkpoints and barriers are a response to
attacks on Israeli cities and towns and were largely absent prior to 2000
and Yasir Arafat’s intifada. Palestinians have abused traditional medical
neutrality, impairing Israeli efforts to deliver care, using ambulances,
patients, and “pregnant women” to deliver the means of destruction(2).
Tens of millions of refugees from around the world during the last
century were resettled. Only the descendants of Arabs who left Israel
were placed in permanent refugee status. At the urging of their Arab
brethren, the United Nations created a unique bureaucracy, the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), for that purpose. Among the 21
members of the Arab League, all but Jordan denied citizenship and homes to
those displaced.
There has been considerable tragedy on both sides of this nearly
sixty-year-old conflict. Beginning with rejection of partition in 1948;
through 19 years of Jordanian and Egyptian occupation of Gaza and the West
Bank; the 1967 Khartoum conference where assembled Arab leaders pledged
"no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with
it”(3); the 2000 negotiations at Camp David, when Palestinian leader
Yasir Arafat responded to yet another Israeli offer of self-determination
and statehood with the second intifada; to the 2006 Palestinian election
of Hamas, unalterably and unabashedly opposed to Israel’s existence(4),
Palestinians and their leaders in the Arab world have repeatedly refused a
peaceful resolution and statehood because it required not just
acknowledgement but acceptance of Israel’s existence.
Despite their responsibility for the Palestinians’ suffering, I am
opposed to a boycott of Arab League or United Nations members as morally
wrong collective punishment and counterproductive to the cause of peace.
1 Hickey T. Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic
institutions? Yes. BMJ 2007;335:124 (24 July).
2 Cohn JR, Romirowsky A, Marcus JM. Abuse of health-care workers’
neutral status. Lancet. 363:1473, May 1, 2004.
3 Khartoum resolutions. http://www.mideastweb.org/khartoum.htm,
accessed 22 July, 2007.
4 The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas),
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant, accessed 22 July, 2007.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests